The Fashion Capital Of The World

As I mentioned before we are planning a trip. We have not decided where as of yet. Since we have been trying to decide where to go, I was looking back at the pictures from a trip earlier in the year. When I was almost 9 months pregnant I went on a shopping trip to Milan, Italy with the girls. We had a blast! Milan is beautiful and I loved the Galleria and everything being centered on fashion and style. When I went shopping in Milan, I had a purpose. I was in search of a designer handbag that I could double as a diaper bag for the baby. (I did not want an ordinary diaper bag) I have an obsession for fashion and being in Milan and watching fashion shows was incredible. I was excited because I actually watched a photo shoot in front of the Prada store. (I love Prada too) My husband can concur to that! Anyhow, I didn’t find a handbag to double as a diaper bag, but I did buy me an Emporio Armani handbag that is super cute!

Since I was in the fashion capital of the world and could not find what I was looking for, I gave up. I searched and searched the internet, but nothing. After the baby was born, my friend bought me a really cute bag that matched the stroller perfectly. I have been using it all spring and summer. Well, a couple of weeks ago I went shopping and was looking in the handbag section and this leather bag came into my view. It was just what I needed and had been looking for and it is perfect for the fall and winter! Oh, the diva in me was very happy! It’s a great handbag. I actually like it as much as my Prada handbags, which are currently in the cloth protectors in the top of my closet.

Ladies, if you have infatuation for handbags as much as I do, check out this designer, Francesco Biasia, he’s an Italian designer. The handbags are of great quality, I’m very pleased.

Other than shopping, we did do other things in Milan. (I know it’s probably hard to believe). We also did some site seeing. Before heading to Milan we went to Lake Como, Italy and went on a boat tour. It is a beautiful lake with breath-taking views. It was in February when I went, so it was a bit unpleasantly cold. I hope we can make it back sometime in the spring. We also went to the Duomo Cathedral, which is the 3rd largest Cathedral in the World. Words cannot describe how magnificent this place is. It also smelled incredible. In addition, we went to the Sforzesco Castle and the Opera House. Both places are amazing structures. I took pictures of the Castle; however, the tour guide did not allow pictures of the Opera House.

After Milan we went to Switzerland, which has the best chocolate in the WORLD called Milka, by chocolatier Philippe Suchard. When I looked at the packaging it showed, Kraft Foods. But, I guess over the years Kraft bought the recipe. I don’t know the exact history. Regardless, if you ever get your hands on this, it’s delicious. Of course, we did more shopping in Switzerland then back to Sicily. I’ve included some pictures of my new handbag, which the inside is so fun looking! LOVE it! I also included some pictures of Milan, Italy.

Birthday Tribute To Will

Birthdays remind us that the gift of life is the most precious and important one. This is my birthday tribute to BJ (Will). Friends and family also joined in to share their special memories of you, and wish you the very best birthday! I love you babe. I hope all your birthday wishes come true!

Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words. – Plautus

Hey Dad! I love yas, I hope you have a good birthday. I just wanted to say, happy B-Day…and I love ya! I hope that you have a very special day, and I know your getting old, 29 “is” getting old. Anyway….SSSS, I love ya! ~Jayce

Will,
I wish you all the best in life and may you have many more to come...
I won't forget the good times we had coaching together, even though we lost most of our games..., I still had fun. Happy Birthday ~Art

Hi, just wanted to say Happy Birthday, young man! I enjoyed having you as my table-mate in the beginning of x-ray school, even though I was pretty quiet most of the time. Enjoy your birthday. XRT 67! ~ Srey

BJ ..Just wanted to wish you a HAPPY BIRTHDAY.. Wish I could be there to celebrate it with you. Miss you.. Love ~MOM

Happy Birthday Will!!!!
We send you the best wishes from sunny San Diego.
Always remember that your friends are there to support you during this transition in your life.... Age is just a number and you will always remain younger than Richard and myself. That should make you smile :).... Stay young!!!!! ~Michelle, Richard and Ryan

B.J. - HAPPY - HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! Are you still moving and grooving @ 29 (?) like you did when I first met you..?? Do you remember the first time you came to Tulsa, and….the weather?? We were all going to dinner, and Delana was of course the last one to be ready to go, she was in the bathroom, the electric went off , it started hailing and you ran outside to move your car under the trees so it would not get banged up from the hail. As you were outside, the tornado sirens sounded...Delana hollering, where's B.J.? You were running and flew past the windows, Lorrinda ran outside after you. Somehow, I know we all made it back into the apartment. Dinner, I believe consisted of turkey sandwiches by candle light and kerosene lamp at Grandma's. Hope your birthday is special...Miss you...and Much Love ~Mom (Lorraine)

"I wish you a very happy birthday! Don't forget that youth is a disease from which we all recover." ~ Micahla

The thing about BJ is that his humor, his energy and his playfulness are contagious. While we were in Nuc Med school everybody would be all uptight about the tests or instructors and the tension/drama would be high and in would walk BJ from our break imitating Chief Jasper exactly! From his walk and mannerisms to how he talked and what he said and he would literally crack everyone up until the next instructor came in and had to ask everyone to calm down. But he was never embarrassed or shy about his humor and would do the imitation at the drop of a dime for the very guy he was imitating, and that tells me that BJ is comfortable with who he is and that his compassion for everyone in the class was genuine and that he wasn’t mocking the instructor so much as taking care of his classmates. BJ is the kind of guy that you are lucky to meet and are blessed if you can call him your friend and I miss him even though he became an X-ray tech… Happy Birthday Will!! ~Matt

My funniest memory of BJ is the first day I met him. I took him out to the driving range; it was a beautiful clear Oklahoma day..... Then weather started rolling in the tornado sirens started going off. I was getting ready to go out.. Yes, it was big hair in Oklahoma so I had these hard curlers in my hair. BJ went to move the car because it started hailing.. Delana asked me to run out and get him.. Being pelted with hail in curlers is not fun! I couldn't find BJ but saw him run by the apartment twice.. We finally got him inside. We all ended up standing in the bathtub until the sirens stopped. I think Boomer, Delana’s dog bit one of us...lol..
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! LOVE YOU LOTS..~Lorrinda

HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY B.J. Many years ago Delana called from college to say she had met the sweetest guy at school. She said she was bringing him home to meet everybody. This was one intro I didn't want to miss. Happy Birthday B.J.! But you do still manage to look like Aladdin. Your "Magic Carpet" is now the U.S. Navy. I love you, miss you and wish you a" Happy 29?" birthday. Love & Kisses ~Aunt LouElla

"Middle age occurs when you are too young to take up golf and too old to rush up to the net." - Franklin Pierce Adams. Happy 35th old timer!~Ian & Donella

Happy bday! ~Presley

Happy Birtday man.......how old are you now 50? You made xray school fun especially when we played football and I'd burn you for a touchdown...LOL. I hope you and your family are doing well. ~LO

BJ, Hope you have a wonderful birthday. Here is a video to remind you of how cool you use to be.~Gregg

B.J. has always been a people pleaser and if he doesn't feel good or is having a bad day, only those that really know him very well can tell, he covers his emotions very well. I will always keep in my memory the sweet smile and friendly 'wink' that comes from B.J.'s face. I hope you have a wonderful birthday and may all your wishes come true!! I Love You!!! Love, ~Mama T

Thirty-Five years old; seems just like yesterday you were born! I love you now just as much as the first day I first saw you. Even though we don't see each other as much as I'd like to, I feel very close to you. I wish you a very happy birthday and I wait for the day that we can pal around together! Love ~Dad

When BJ was 16 he owned a Ford Escort that everyone thought was as cool as the Pope Mobile(to pull this one off he dated the priest, Father True, and paid his boyfriend to ride around with him) JK Bro. Happy Birthday old man.~Mike

BJ, I love you and miss you. I hope you have a great birthday and I will see you soon! ~Crystal, Shawn, and Taylor

B.J. - Thanks for always being a great role model and giving me footsteps to follow (same college, SWOSU; same profession, X-ray)

A Tribute to my Brother
Through the years and many tears
You have taught me so much to know
Though you and I are far apart
Our love, I feel, stays close at heart
And so I sum this little letter
With a hug and kiss to make "your day" better!
Happy 35th Birthday! I love and miss you....my big brother.....from your favorite SISSY-Kimy

Happy birthday bro! I’ll call you tomorrow and talk with you live. ~ Troy

Happy birthday B.J. have a wonderful day~ Erin and Tatum

We met BJ (and the lovely Delana) in 1998 when they moved down the road from us in military housing at MCAS Cherry Point. We soon discovered he was a pretty cool guy, even if he was a Navy boy, and he kept Mike busy with lots of home improvement projects that I always benefitted from. "Wow...that carpet we put down in BJ's house turned out really nice. Maybe we need new carpet too!" We had a lot of cookouts, and the occasional really bad Blockbuster night. But don't worry BJ...we forgive you for picking flicks like "Wild Things," even if they did cause permanent scarring. Just kidding. You're a great guy, terrific friend, and man among men. And you play WoW too! How could you not be cool? (Unless you're Alliance, in which case, may I never see you alone in Azeroth.) Happy Birthday, my friend. Wishing you a fabulous 35th, and only giggling a little bit that you'll always be older. Enjoy Italy and maybe we will all run into each other again somewhere down the line. All the best...~Barbara & Mike

Happy Birthday BJ
Remember you are BLESSED :) = Beautiful wife, children, family and friends and your faith in Jesus. So don't worry that your another year older :)~Rita & Ted

The only thing I can say is this man is a salesman. He has the gift of gab. He can sale a 5 bedroom igloo to a dessert A-rabbi. The whole time with a smile on his face. ~Walker

Happy Birthday Will,

I met Keller(Will) in X-ray school in Portsmouth ,VA. I knew we would get along right away we both liked sports and playing golf and video games and we both liked to bust balls, but we could also take it with a grain of salt if we were the one's getting our balls busted. I remember one time Will, Jayce, and myself went golfing in Suffolk. We were on Par five hole and we had never played this course before so we didn't realize it was downhill and Will decided to drive and hit the perfect drive around the dogleg left all of a sudden a this big fat guy came up the hill swearing at Will, and at first Will was calm but, then he got upset because this guy was swearing in front of his son, and he was ready to throw down. I already knew Will was a good guy, but seeing him around Jayce when we hung out I realized he was also a great dad and someone I will use as a role model and example to raise my son Connor.
Happy B-day Bro.
PS If you didn't fail that friggin dark room test we could be hanging out and working together in Naples, but what could I expect from a Air Wing Corpsman LOL.~Dieffenbach

Happy Birthday! I got counseling in x-ray school because of him. HM1 Barnes if you remember him was the one who gave it to me! We were doing these math problems on the board and it was like a race on who would finish 1st, well he and I were pitted against one another and I think I won! Well, you know how you kid one another? Well, HM1 Barnes didn't see it like that! He took me into his office and said that I hurt HM2 Keller's feelings! HUH? Feelings? About a math problem? He was way smarter than me, it was just that I wrote faster than him! So, I was told to apologize to him for "arguing". So, after that I kept kidding around how I couldn't "hurt" his "feelings". He was too sensitive. We miss you all!~Toni

Will,
Thanks for being such a great friend. Hope you had a wonderful day with the family.
Hugs,~Obie, Isabel, Nathaniel & Joshua http://tinypic.com/player.php?v=263u268&s=4

Happy Birthday. I hope all your wishes come true.~Taylor

Cuteness

Before I go to bed I wanted to post these pictures of Lana. What a cutie!!

Desserts And Disaster

Jayce will be home soon from school. Today was the first day and I am excited to hear all about it. Since this morning was unpredictable, we did not have our usual “first day of school” routine. My neighbor is home resting, she and baby are doing fine.

Last night, I made Jayce some celebration cupcakes. It was red-velvet cake, with cherries and chocolate curls. Everything was from scratch. I was ecstatic because it was the first time I made chocolate curls myself, and it turned out perfect!!!

Before hand, I did not have all the ingredients so I made numerous amounts of trips back and forth to the tiny commissary here in housing. It’s the “baby brain”, I’m very forgetful! Come on’ moms, you know you have had “baby brain”, too.

When I had the finished product… It was a great feeling!! All my trips paid off. I took a picture, because of course; they looked stunning and tasted spectacular. I loaded up most of the cupcakes in the caddy for Will to take to work the next day, and when I went to place them in the fridge, they all tumbled over!!

NOOOOO!!! I kept thinking.. This really did not happen, did it?? I just lost all my cool mom points!

Sadly, yes. I spent over two hours making them and it crushed me to see them all smashed together. As a result, they landed in the trash. On a positive note, Jayce had saved his two cupcakes for later! I had also made a banana dessert for the “radiology crew” at Will’s work.

In the end, I still smiled.

Baby Blogger

I’m a baby blogger. (term used for a person new to blogging) I know it. I admit it. I have just recently started blogging and I keep changing backgrounds, or a better description would be "tweaking". I will probably tweak for awhile, at least until I find a skin that fits. Then I can sit back and say “aahhhh.”

Thank you for your patience . I appreciate any comments or suggestions that you have.

Terrifying Moment

I witnessed a very terrifying moment this morning. Our neighbor is about 6-7 months pregnant and she got trapped between her car and an outside storage building. (She was not inside the vehicle, but the vehicle was pressed up against her belly and on the other side is a storage building. The car was running and moving forward, and she got trapped.) I’m not sure how it happened, but BJ (Will) rushed over, along with another neighbor to help her. At this moment, they are on their way to the hospital. I feel terrible for my neighbor. I remember when I was pregnant and I fell down the stairs. It is the worst feeling, because all you want to do is make sure the baby is ok. My thoughts and prayers are with her and the baby this morning.

Reflection And Faith

Life is comparable to a book. There are many chapters in our life, some we would like to erase and rewrite, others we would like to read over and over again, and some we are enthusiastically anticipating. I’ve been working on a paper about reflection in one of my classes, and I have been doing a great deal of reflecting in my personal life.

I am a spiritual person and I feel that I have a purpose in life to fulfill. I love being a wife and mother, and I don’t think anything compares to the nurture and love I provide to my children. For the most part, I’ve always had a J-O-B outside the home. Some of these jobs, I loved. Some of them, I will never ever work again.

Lesson learned.

I’ve always had a desire to have a family and a career. I’ve managed to embrace the family part, but the career part; I had to do some serious soul searching, not to mention praying. (Tons of praying) Which led me to where I am today, pursuing my Bachelors degree in Education.

In the beginning, I had to face many fears of returning back to college. Was I ready to go back? Did I really want to be a teacher? I had these questions and many more racing through my mind. At that point, I realized I had to have faith and believe in myself.

Yes, FAITH.

So, you dream and the way will be clear. Pray and the angels will hear. Leap and the net will appear. (These are a few lines in a beautiful song about taking risk and making better choices.)

This afternoon, I was telling a friend that I can envision myself as a teacher. (A really GREAT teacher) Most importantly, I’m happy.

Sweet!

My search for my best life and self is NOW satisfied. I’m looking forward to the next chapter of my life!

The photo below was taken during one of my ultrasounds. When I watched the above video and she was talking about “The Zen’s”, it reminded me of this moment in the ultrasound room. During the scan, Lana held up her arms as if she was meditating and the ultrasound tech. and I laughed, then she typed ZEN TIME! Great moment!

Goodbye To Summer 2008....

Well, the past couple of days all of us have had the sniffles. Even so, I’ve been working away on my assignments for my classes. BJ has been waiting for his next class to start and Jayce wants summer vacation to last FOREVER! Overall, I think we have had a great summer. The boys enjoyed their trip to Paris for the WOW invitational. We’ve all taken pleasure in hanging out and laughing with each other, going to the movies, swimming, exercising, staying up late, and relaxing. The joy of all joys, being no alarm clock for me or Jayce!!! (Sorry BJ) I think the greatest thing about summer vacation is no time restraints. But, that is about to end when Jayce starts school. Nonetheless, we are looking forward to a new school year, football season, and autumn approaching. Here are a few pictures recapping the highlights of summer…..

Simple Sunday

OK, I finally have a moment to stop and write something. This morning after church BJ (Will) cooked some steak on the grill; it was delicious!! He has become quite the chef since we moved here to Sicily. I don’t’ think I have tasted steak as great anywhere else! He definitely deserves two thumbs up!!! Another great moment of today is Lana’s rolling over. Yippee! Actually, she has been rolling over some in the past month, but now it’s happening more frequently. She is such a great bundle of happiness; I can’t imagine life without her. On a down note, Jayce has caught a cold (probably from the pre-school kids) so he’s been chillin’ most of the day.

I’m sure everyone is wondering when I am going to post some pictures of travels around Italy and other parts of Europe.. Hang tight. I will be posting some things very soon. FYI, the Italians travel the month of August, for the most part everything is closed here. We are planning a trip (have not decided where as of yet) but, I will let you know. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

Taste Bud Cravings!

I’m always in search of great recipes. I have two specific reasons for the search. First, I like to try new things and change up the menu. Secondly, I collect certain recipes for when my mom comes to visit so we can try them together. I always look forward to my mom’s visits, and a few days before she arrives I go to the store and get all the ingredients needed. My mom is a great cook and I look forward to eating foods that normally my husband does not like to eat. It’s always a plus for Jayce because he gets to eat his favorite, PUMPKIN PIE. I prefer to cook and eat foods in their natural origin. For the most part, we generally eat healthy. Sometimes we do splurge on junk food and chocolate is always a favorite!

Today, I desperately wanted to eat something healthy and tasty. It seemed like this past week, we did not eat so healthy and my taste buds have been craving good, healthy, food. So, I came across this easy recipe, I cooked it up, and my taste buds were pleased! The recipe is Oven Baked Carrot Fries. It tasted so good and was extremely easy to make. Unfortunately, I had to use plain orange carrots, but I would love to try it with the purple carrots shown in the picture. If someone tries it, please let me know how it turns out. The recipe is as follows:

A big bunch of farmers' market purple carrots, washed, trimmed, extra virgin olive oil, and sea salt. Heat oven to 375. Cut each carrot in half. Toss the entire bunch in a bowl with a couple glugs of olive oil. Arrange cut side down in a single layer on a baking sheet and sprinkle generously with salt. Bake for 30 minutes or until carrots are golden brown where they touch the pan.*

All in all, I was happy that I found something easy, quick, and healthy to eat. I was also especially happy because I found another recipe to try when my mom comes for her next visit. Now, for this one, you will have to brace yourself… Ready?!

Chocolate Oblivion Truffle Torte Recipe, it is from The Cake Bible by Rose Beranbaum. The recipe only has 3 ingredients; however, it does have a lot of side notes and regrettably too many for me to list, so I am showing a picture. I will let you know how it turns out after my mom’s next visit. If you come across this recipe and make it, please let me know how it tastes. If you have any recipes to share, please pass them along. I’ll try to post more recipes as well.

*recipes taken from 101cookbooks.com